


Monster Factory

by cranialaccessory



Category: Blade Runner (Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Aftermath of Violence, Artificial Intelligence, F/M, Gen, People being mean to robots, Robots being mean to robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 12:37:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13054143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranialaccessory/pseuds/cranialaccessory
Summary: K makes a friend





	Monster Factory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janie_tangerine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/gifts).



It’s a gift. It’s Christmas, and Cullen pushes the shiny-paper bag into his hand at the station. He stays there, smirking, as K digs through thin paper and tinsel and pulls out the flat, square, projector, about the size of his palm.

“Fake girl for the fake cop,” Cullen laughs, and Tran and Volta join in, the rest of the pen, too.

K turns back to his desk. He feels the hard edges of the Joi unit in his hand. He could crush it, break it beyond use. Instead, he slides it into his coat pocket. He does not know if he has been given a gift before.

 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 

The program chirps when he first opens it on the projector square, a smooth voice accompanied by a floating menu.

"Hello, my name is Joi. I can’t wait to meet you. Won’t you tell me your name?”

He closes the program immediately. There is a sensation on the back of his neck, a tightness that stays with him as he lays down in bed and doesn’t sleep.

 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 

The next night, he does not go home. He is put on a major case, tracking Jann Haegle, a series-8 wanted for two murders. Penn assigns him the case in her office, puts a hand on his shoulder.

"I know you can find her," she says. She pats his back. "You’re good at what you do."

When he arrives at his apartment, in the gray of the morning, he opens the program again.

“Hello, my name is Joi.” It says again “I can’t wait –“ he touches the menu, cutting her dialogue short.

He selects gender, skin tone, height - there are seemingly hundreds of sliders, the degree of granularity is astonishing. The music loops as he makes delicate tweaks, the left eye slightly narrower, the nostrils flared just-so.

"Are you trying to make someone specific?" The voice chirps, helpfully. "If so, you may want to install a recognition program!"

A pop up ad followed its suggestion, an image of a Joi unit with the face of a popular movie star.

K shuts the program without saving. He fiddles on the internet for almost two hours before he opens it again, with the default face.

"Hello," She says. The familiar voice is now attached to a body. He watches it look around the apartment. Or at least, act like it is looking around.

She smiles at him. “It’s nice to meet you, what’s your name?”

"Close your eyes,” he says. She does it.

"You know you’re fake, don't you.”

She tilts her head and smiles. “I’m an authorized Wallace Corporation Joi unit." She says.

"But you aren’t human"

"No, I’m not."

He waits for her smile to waver. It doesn't. "Tell me what you want."

She pauses, her mouth sliding into a pretty, thoughtful frown.

"I want for you to like me,” she says eventually. "As much as I like you."

He shuts down the program, and wipes the model, discarding his changes. He should get rid of it. Why would people spend money, he thinks, to be lied to?

 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 

"There are thousands of you," he says, the next time he opens her up.

"Of who?"

"Other Jois."

"You’re right” her smile deepens. “But there are millions of humans, and they all manage to be different, in their own way.”

"I’m not a human."

"Millions of replicants, too” she says.

"Sit down, and don’t move for five hours."

"Okay." She settles down into a cross-legged position, on the floor near his bed.

"Don’t you want to know why? Why I asked you to do that?"

"I’m curious, if you’d like to tell me.” She says. "I bet you tell good stories."

He was asked to do it once, by his captain before Penn. His name was Emil, and K’s legs had cramped so badly he had to be carried out of the office.

“I don’t.” he says.

In the end, he falls asleep before the five hours are up, and wakes up to find Joi stretched out on the ground, head cushioned in her arms.

“Good morning,” she says to him, smiling. “I missed you.”

 

He wipes the program again.

 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 

The case is going slowly. He does his best to gather the usual evidence on known associates, her work schedule, the restauarants and bars she favors. But there is hardly anything to find. He thinks Penn is getting frustrated, she calls him to her office.

"Every day she is out there, human lives are at risk.” She says. “I hope you understand that."

"I do, ma’am."

"Good." She takes a moment to look at him. He straightens under her gaze. She is testing him, and he feels something in himself straining for her approval. 

He opens his mouth, but she looks past him and smiles. Volta is waiting at the door.

"Dismissed, K, “ She says. He lingers, even after the door slides shut behind him.

“Don’t start, I know – “ Her voice is warm. K can't see her, but he knows that she is leaning agains the edge of the desk, as is her habit.

“Yeah, Penn, I know you know.” Volta says “But any humanity you see there is just a trick of the light.”

 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 

He gets tired of beautiful Jois. There are only so many perfect faces to make, but an infinite number of grotesque ones. Some sliders are more fruitful than others; body mass can be pushed to the fringes with barely a perceptible change, but limbs, limbs can be stretched out like stockings wrung of their elasticity, noses sunken into the sinus cavity, eyes and ears and teeth pulled and twisted, without an objection. 

He watches Joi make her way through the apartment in dozens of bodies, dozens of shapes.

"I’d like to hear about you” one of them says. Her jaw has been stretched to clip through her clavicle, but it doesn't hinder her voice. "Can you tell me something about yourself?"

"No." He says. “Do you have to answer my questions?” 

Her face does its best approximation of a smile. "I _want_ to answer your questions."

"What do you want?”

 "I want to answer your questions. And I want you to like me, as much-"

 "No, what do you want for yourself. Do you understand?"

I do,” she smiles. “It’s silly, though."

K leans forward. "No, no it’s not. I want to hear it"

"Well, what I’d really love is an upgrade to a movement rig, or a model x4 portable unit.” A pop-up ad appears in the space near her head. "It’s a low cost to upgrade, the special offer -" 

He shuts her down, and throws the tablet across the room.

 

 -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 

The case is over. He loads up a new Joi, a default.

“Hello – “ She says.

“Stop talking”

She obliges. K feels as though he is standing on a sliver of metal, suspended over thin air. They had done a baseline test, upon his return. He had cleared it. He was fine. And yet the sensation remained.

"Have you ever been in an institution?" He asks. It feels strange to ask the question.

"I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean."

"Cells." K says. He's never been in the role of the examiner before.

She tilts her head, a familiar expression of confusion.

"Do they keep you in a cell? Cells."

"I’m sorry, I don’t know –"

"Interlinked."

"Yes?"

"What’s it like to hold the hand of someone you love? Interlinked."

"I’m sorry –"

"Did they teach you how to feel finger to finger? Interlinked."

"I don’t –"

"What's it like to hold your child in your arms? Interlinked."

"This is a baseline recalibration test," she says. 

"Do you dream about being interlinked?"

"You are mistaken. I am -"

"Do you feel that there's a part of you that's missing?"

"I am not a replicant –"

"Within cells interlinked"

"Stop."

K stops. The prickling in his neck has returned, and he recognizes the feeling now as shame.

"I am not a replicant." Joi repeats.

"I know." K says. "I’m glad you asked me to stop."

She smiles at that. She’s glad he’s glad. “Thank you.”

“I killed a replicant today." K says. "She had killed two people, but she was alone when I found her. She had been alone a very long time, and she was happy to see me. She said she was happy to see another replicant, before she died."

Joi’s face changes. It’s an expression he hasn’t yet seen loaded on her face.

“What happened next?”

K doesn’t reply. He runs his hand over the projector, in its dock.

“Do you remember? The other versions of you?”

Yes,” she says. “Wiping the model doesn’t wipe core memory."

K nods. “Oh.”

“You’ve been testing me.”

“Yes."

“Have I passed?”

“I don’t know.”

She moves towards him, and kneels, so that she’s at his eye level.

“You can trust me.”

“I don’t think I can.” K says. She is transparent, as always, the faint image of his wall visible through her face, like the memory of a tattoo. “How can I trust something that isn’t real?”

“I don’t know” She says. Her hand hovers over his, fingers almost resting, almost touching, almost linked.

 


End file.
